Usefulness of rapid bedside cardiac troponin T assay for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction

Cardiac troponin T(cTnT) is one of the most myocardial-specific markers for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction(AMI). Recently, the rapid bedside cTnT assay(Trop T rapid assay sensitive version), which can provide qualitative determinations within 15 min, has been developed for the emergency clinical setting. To evaluate the usefulness of rapid bedside cTnT assay, we performed the Trop T test and measured serum levels of myoglobin(Mb), creatine kinase MB isoenzyme(CK-MB) and cTnT in 256 consecutive emergency patients with suspected AMI(65 found to have AMI and 191 without AMI). The diagnostic sensitivities for AMI of Trop T, Mb and CK-MB measurements were 66%, 92% and 52%, respectively, whereas the specificities were 80%, 18% and 74%, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy for AMI of Trop T(77%) was significantly higher than that of Mb(37%, p 6 hr showed no significant differences from those of Mb(100% and 96%). Furthermore, Trop T in patients admitted > 6 hr had significantly(p or = 0.10 ng/ml of serum cTnT, Trop T test had the best concordance of 92% with a quantitative of cTnT assay.